


Could you ever want me to love you?

by Macaron



Category: Chernobyl (TV 2019)
Genre: (sort of), Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Bittersweet, Bittersweet Ending, But not heavy because I'm too soft, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Falling In Love, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Melancholy, Sharing a Bath, apparently more fluff because it happened, soft radioactive men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-05-20 17:54:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19381789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Macaron/pseuds/Macaron
Summary: "Boris had always thought that the first contact with his soulmate would be an explosion.  It's not an explosion, it's not a bang it's a flame, a thrill. It's as if a second heart began to beat in his chest much stronger than the first.So this is it. It's you.You'll be the love of my life. Hi.Except he can't be. "





	1. Chapter 1

Valery Legasov continues to toy with the package. He takes in his hands, he tries to read the instruction written on the box and then he puts away.

It's his birthday, ten years so he is basically an adult and his mother gave him a chemistry set probably because in the last tests at school received the highest grades and the teacher said that he is very good at chemistry and his mother is a good listener (his father, not so much).

He loves it, of course. He loves it, but.

"Mom, do chemists wear gloves at work?"

His mother looks at him puzzled. "Of course they wear gloves. They are always in contact with very dangerous substances, they could hurt themselves. But don't worry, Valera, there's nothing dangerous in your set."

Valery puts the package on the floor and takes it away. "Then I don't want it."

"Why my love?"

"Because I don't want to be a chemist anymore, I don't want to wear gloves. How could I do if I had gloves when I met her?"

He is talking about his soulmate. Soulmates recognize themselves when they touch each other and gloves are certainly an impediment to this contact.

Of course not everyone meet their soulmate during their life. His parents aren't soulmates and they are living a good life, they have a good wedding. But Valery is ten and the idea is inconceivable.

Chemistry is just a work, and you can't risk you soulmate for a work.

His mother looks at him a little bit worried, sad even.

"Don't worry, mother" he says. "The teacher says that I'm good at poetry too and poet don't need gloves. I'll be a poet and maybe I'll do chemistry on my free time."

His mother smiles at him, with sweetness.

"Let's do this, my love. Take the set and play with it. Keep your options open. Your soulmate will find you even with gloves, trust me. It's impossible not to love you."

Valery smiles her back and opens the package.

Years after when it's clear that people can definitely not love him starts to wear gloves (different kind of gloves) even outside the work. It's his way to say to his soulmate " It's not you who don't want to find  me, it's me. I don't want to find you. I don't need you. I don't want you. He doesn't need her, he has his job. He is a professor, he is a physicist. He is respected and esteemed. He has colleagues to talk to at lunch, some friends, a cat who is waiting for him at home. He doesn't need to be loved, he doesn't need a soul mate, it's not you, it's me, I don't need you, I don't want you.

And then his phone rings.

“Valery Legasov?”

 

 

 

When it happens Boris thinks he is wrong. They are basically flying over a reactor, there must be an error. His body is wrong. It's the stress, it's the situation, it's that annoying professor who thinks that he is too stupid to understand how a reactor works. His body is wrong. It can't be otherwise. (He knows in his heart that his body isn't wrong. He is old, he lived on this planet for more than sixty years and in all those years his body never felt like this. It's not wrong. He know. But it needs to be.)

They are flying over a nuclear reactor, no they are coming back after not flying over a nuclear reactor when Legasov literally falls into his lap. Boris touches him to help him get up (he could do it himself, is he not able to stand up, damn it?) And feels it. Boom.

Boris had always thought that the first contact with his soulmate would be an explosion. The girls at school when they talked about it dreamily imagined butterflies in the stomach, to faint maybe. It's not an explosion, it's not a bang, it's not a fainting, it is a flame, a thrill. It's as if a second heart began to beat in his chest much stronger than the first.

So this is it. It's you. You'll be the love of my life. Hi.

Except he can't be. He can't be this man who struggled to sit back and who since he met Boris has only bothered him (what need was there to reiterate that it was 400rx?). He can't be. Boris is just too stressed. Maybe it's because of the radiation that fucked his brain.

He gives a look at Legasov as the helicopter prepares to land. He is a mess and he is smart. And he is so annoying, so so annoying. (He has nice eyes under the glasses, he thinks. And it looks like there are freckles. When he was a child he liked a girl with freckles and red hair.) Boris never cared much about his soulmate, he always focused on career, on the Party. He made a family because it was the right thing to do, and he gave them what he could. It never mattered to him that his wife was his soulmate, it wasn't important. His marriage was simple, convenient.

Boris looks at the man in front of him and knows that there is nothing simple in him, nothing convenient.

He can't be his soul mate, his body is wrong. Better not think about it anymore.

His second heart, the one that at least seems to be a second heart, beats faster.

 

 

 

Boris can't stop thinking about it. He doesn't want to do it, but he can't stop his brain. He should be focused on the helicopters that are throwing boron and sand on the fire, he should be focused on all the giant mess which they will have to deal with, and he does. He does. But a small part of his brain it's not there, it's still in that helicopter thinking about the moment he touched Legasov's arm.

It's like there was a power surge, as if a part of his brain didn't belong to him anymore. Is this love? Do you meet someone and a part of you no longer belongs to you? He did not give permission for this to happen.

And it gets worse. A part of him, a very small part of him likes that man. And it has nothing to do with the soulmate thing (or maybe it has), it has everything to do with the way Legasov talks about things that only he understands, with the way he stood up and said "no" when it was proposed to update the meeting, with the expression he had when the first helicopter fell and Boris turned to him hoping that there was another alternative. These things, all these things would still be there even without that touch, even without the soul mate. Even if everything else was simply a mistake.

But right now a part of him really hopes it wasn't a mistake.

 

 

 

He is happy. Not really happy because they are dealing with a catastrophe but twenty drops have been successful, they are on the right way. So maybe Boris is a little happy when he enters in Legasov's room. Maybe he is allowing himself to think that the man in the room could really be his soulmate. Maybe he is thinking to take his hands, to celebrate the good result with boron and sand. Nothing too intimate, just a touch on his shoulder (and neck), maybe a handshake. A little touch, just to be sure. Just to be sure that his body wasn't wrong.

Legasov is worried. Boris doesn't even have time to cheer him up with the news of the successful drops that he is already focused on the city, on the evacuation, that he is already a step forward (Boris has long legs, a fast pace so why next to this man always seems to be a step backwards?). And then before Boris has the chance to hug him, to touch his hand Legasov says:

"We will be dead in five years."

And everything go to hell.

Boris doesn't even bother trying to touch him. He lets himself fall on  the chair while in his head Legasov's words continue to resound to him.

It's no longer worthwhile to discover anything. _We will be dead in five years._ They don't have time, they don't have nothing. This isn't a gift, this is a curse. And Boris will not share it with another person.

He cannot save him but at least he can save him from this.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "He'll never get over this feeling. He'll never get over Boris. How could he? He has only five years and it would take a lifetime. He'll die in five years and until that day he'll take all of this with him."

 

Boris is already sleeping. He left before him, he was tired, he yelled all day at everyone and Valery realized that he started  to find it reassuring to hear those yells. The first time he saw him, tall, big and not at all willing to listen an opinion that was not his own, that voice had almost made him hesitate, take a step back. Now that he can see what it's behind that voice, that he is able to read it is different. But then everything is different.

Boris is having a nightmare. The walls of their rooms are so thin (obviously, they are cheaper) that when Boris has a nightmare he can hear it. He doesn't know what he is dreaming of, since they arrived Valery closes his eyes every night and always dives into a dreamless sleep that frightens him even more in his immobility. He has never had the courage to ask him about those nightmares in the morning. He puts his hand to the wall, trying to reassure him at a distance,trying to make contact. I'm here. You are not alone.

He never thought about himself as a romantic but then he hadn't thought of himself as many things and this situation is turning them all upside down.

The thing is: Valery could be a little in love. Maybe even more than a little.

He almost laughs at that thought. Valery is fifty years old. He had some quick fucks, something that could look like a relationship but he never fell in love. He has always felt alone but in that solitude he found a dimension, something reassuring to come back to. He furnished it, he built a comfortable life in it, safe.

And now he ended up falling in love the moment he consciously decided to walk on the most dangerous ground in the world. It's ridiclous, it's a joke.

He'll never get over this, he thinks. When you end a relationship, every relationship, you think you'll have time to recover, to move on. He'll never have the time to move on. He'll be dead in five years, if he is lucky, and he'll never get over what he is feeling right now for that man on the other side of the wall.

He hasn't planned of course. He walked on that ground to find graphite, not this.

But Boris gave him 5000 tons of boron and sand. Boris says "What?" when he isn’t talking for some time, when he is too quiet. Boris plays with the dogs when nobody sees him and he plays with the dogs when Valery is around too sometime. Boris has the nightmares because unlike most of people he cares, for the miners, for the divers, for Valery. Boris sees him and nobody really saw Valery, not in a way that matters. He was always too quiet, too insignificant, too clumsy to be really seen. But when he speaks Boris looks at him and Valery knows he's really seeing him.

And then there are the good days when they stay awake to have a couple of drinks, and Valery wonders if it's because they are both too scared to go to sleep or because they don't want to give up those moments that are just for them, and Boris talks and tells stories and he is so charming and  they are so close they could almost touch (could they almost do something else? There would be something wrong if it happened? if it happened not only in his head?) and for a few minutes he doesn't feel like a man about to die. He feels like a man who is living.

He'll never get over this feeling. He'll never get over Boris. How could he? He has only five years and it would take a lifetime. He'll die in five years and until that day he'll take all of this with him.

 

 

 

It's a smile that fucks everything up, as they were in a silly romantic comedy.

After those first days Boris was careful. He never got too close to Valery, he never risked touching him and even more that let Valery touch him. He said to himself that his body was wrong, that what he felt was a mistake but he didn't give himself the chance to find that.

Of course he let Valery get too close to him. Not physically, there has been nothing even remotely physical. He let him inside his head. Day by day, night by night at some point that "me and you against the rest of the world" started to become the only dimension where Boris felt like himself, felt good.

And of course this is the point where he fucked everything up.

Valery never smiles at work. (The first days Valery never smiles period. Then he started to smile sometime, when they are alone, when it's really late or when it's too early and they are in their hotel room smoking and seeing sunrise, before the day starts when they are still just two old men in a room. Boris catalogs those smiles, for the worse times, for when he will be alone and he will want something to remember just to feel that he is still alive)

Valery never smiles at work so when he does Boris forgets that he has to be careful, he forgets the mantra that he repeated (Don't get too close. Don't touch him. Don't let him touch you.) he takes his face in his hands and hugs him. His heart beats so strongly in that contact (he wasn't wrong, obviously he wasn't wrong) that he hardly noticed that Valery had returned the hug.

In the middle of the afternoon they tell him that Legasov came back to the hotel already. He wasn't feeling well, they tell him. Valery never returned to the hotel before him.

It's almost midnight when Valery knocks at the door of his room. He is drunk and not in his best mood, clearly.

Boris realizes he saw him exasperated before this moment. Angry yes, terrified even, but never like that.

"Comrade Legasov it's late to discuss about those numbers." He says while Valery enters in his bedroom. "Go to sleep, I'm tired and I was going to take a bath. I'll see you in the morning."

Valery looks puzzled for a second but then he slams the door and he follows Boris in the bathroom.

Boris opens the bathtub tap and leaves it running. They didn't put bugs in the bathroom, he already checked but the noise of the water will surely help to cover the voices.

He doesn't know what to say and he doesn't know what Valery will say.

"How long have you known?" he asks.

He could lie, he could say he discovered it that day too.

"The helicopter." He says. "When you fell into my arms."

Valery laughs. "A perfect Victorian heroine." and then "And you thought well not to tell me because it wasn't my business, right? Except it was, it was my fucking business." and when he says he isn't even angry, he is broken.

Boris would like to tell him that he did it to protect him, to take at least some weight from him but he doesn't know if it was really the reason. Maybe he was just scared. Legasov is the bravest man he has ever known, maybe if he had known he would have done something.

Boris doesn't say anything.

Valery looks at him, then shrugs like as say "fuck it",he takes off his shoes and enters the tub. Like this, all dressed.

"What are you doing?" Boris sighs fazed.

"I'm taking a bath." Of course. He grins. "But don't worry I have my goddamn tie on."

And Boris doesn't want to but laughs. Because he is old and tired and radioactive probably but  he feels like a child.

Valery laughs too.

It's impossible to know you and not fall in love with you, he thinks.

He kneels at the foot of the tub and lets a hand wander to caress Valery's knee. Valery takes his hand starts drawing small circles on his palm. it's the first deliberate contact they have and it's like coming home.

"Come here with me."

"You are really that drank. We wouldn't fit, I'm too big."

"We can squeeze in."

"Yeah and the water would come out and I could only face one catastrophe at a time."

Valery laughs. Boris leans towards him and kisses him. A hand still on his knee, Valery's hand cupping his neck pulling him closer and wetting Boris' hair, smiling  in the kiss while he opens his lips. Valery tastes like vodka and cheap coffee. Tastes like coming home.

 

 

 

The water is starting to cool down and they are still there.

"I never thought I would have a soulmate" Boris says.

"Because you are an arrogant prick?"

Boris splashes some water at him. Valery snorts and he allows himself for a moment to think about what would have happened if they had met outside before, at a time when things like this could have happened. In which they could laugh and be silly.

"Because. I had my work, my career. That mattered most."

"I'm sure that considering your appearance-" Valery hesitates and makes a gesture to Boris as if it were enough to explain. Then he laughs. "Come on, you are basically the photograph of the alpha male... I'm sure all the girls will have wanted to be your soul mates."

"And you are like all the girls?"

"Prick."

 

 

 

At one point Valery comes out of the tub.

Boris realizes he should feel something, some excitement at seeing him take off his soaked clothes. The first time two lovers see themselves naked, it should be important, it should be fire and passion. What he feels, ignoring the signs that his cock that he appreciates his sight is sending him, it's warm. Peace. He doesn't want to fuck him senseless (he does, a bit), he wants to crawl inside him and he wants that Valery crawl inside him too.

"I wanted to be you." Valery says.

"I didn't."

"Oh." and "Because am I not a woman?"

"No!"

"Because of the glasses?"

"The glasses? No! Now you are just fishing for compliments."

"Maybe." and he smiles blushing. "But you didn't answer."

"Because we will die in five years, is it so hard to understand?"

"Boris you are sixty-five, I'm fifty did you really think we would have lived forever even without radiation? We're not vampires. Are you a vampire?"

He laughs but Boris doesn't.

And then realize. He went to a nuclear reactor with the core open knowing what would happen. He chose to die, nobody gave any choice to Boris.

He takes his hand.

"Please, take me to the bed."

 

 

 

He wakes up just before dawn, Boris is already awake, sitting on his side of the bed watching him.

"Do you know this scene is disturbing? Is it your idea of being romantic?" whispers for not being heard by the bugs.

"It's not romance, Valera, it's old age. I'm old and I can't sleep, I would have woken up even if I had been sleeping with Tarakanov. Even though I hope he doesn't snore like you."

Valery is about to object when Boris beckons him to sit next. He slips out of the covers, hoping that the morning light is a little lenient to his body, and Boris makes him sit between his legs. it is the most intimate contact they have ever had, it is the most intimate contact Valery has had with anyone.

"Tell me how a reactor works." Boris says loudly.

"You already know how a reactor works."

"Tell me anyway." He asks.

"A nuclear reactor generates power  in the core."

Boris starts to caress his back, tracing trajectories between his freckles. Valery freezes.

"Go on."

 "A series of pumps send a constant flow of cooling water through the core."

_Sorry if it took me so long._ Boris writes on his back while he kisses his neck. He runs his hands down Valery’s spine giving him goosebumps.

"Comrade?"

"Oh, yeah yeah. so  The core's heat turns the water to steam, the steam spins a turbine, and the result is electricity."

"The electricity" Boris hums while suppressing a laugh.

Valery thinks. If this catastrophe hadn't happened we would never have met. We would have lived our lives without knowing this. He thinks of all the people who sacrificed their lives, thinks of all the consequences of what happened and then thinks about what they are feeling in that bed, in that room, now.

If all this hadn't happened, if Chernobyl hadn't happened Boris would have lived a long and peaceful life. More than this. Hundreds of people would have lived long and peaceful lives. How can you want all this? No one would ever wish what happened at Chernobyl, no one. Valery has chosen to sacrifice his life to limit the damage. He's not an idiot, he's not selfish. And yet. And yet there is a part of him that doesn't know if he would be ready to give up everything he is feeling. He should want more for all these people, for Boris. More than five years. He should, he knows he should but he can't. I want it so much, he thinks.

He kisses Boris. Slowly with all his body. Like a surrender. This is it, this is all I am.

_I wanted it to be you too_ , Boris writes on his skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have this very stupid headcanon in which Boris learns how a reactor works because Valery always repeats it when they are together, to distract those who are listening to them while they communicate by writing on their skin.

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to be as coherent as possible with the TV series but we can use a little suspension of disbelief and pretend that Valery didn't even touch Boris on the helicopter, or in other situations.  
> As always this is based on the tv show and only on the characters of the tv. No disrespect to their real life counterparts.  
> As always (two) english isn't my first language.  
> The title is from a song by Violente Femmes


End file.
